HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN CHARTER 2019-03-29 (2018-2020) - Public HearingHawaii County Charter Commission
Public Hearing
Na`alehu Community Center
95-5635 Mamalahoa Highway
Ka`u, Hawai`i
March 29, 2019
CALL TO The public hearing of the Hawai`i County Charter Commission was called to
ORDER: order at 5:04 p.m., in Na`alehu by Mr. Douglass Shipman Adams, Chair.
ROLL CALL:
Present: Mr. Douglass Shipman Adams, Chair
Ms. Jennifer Zelko-Schlueter, Vice Chair
Mr. William Carthage Bergin, Commissioner
Ms. Michelle Galimba, Commissioner
Mr. Paul K. Hamano, Commissioner
Mr. Kevin D. Hopkins, Commissioner
Ms. Sarah H. Rice, Commissioner
Ms. Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, Commissioner
Absent:
Also Present:
Mr. Christopher John Imiloa Roehrig, Commissioner
Ms. Marcia A. K. Saquing, Commissioner
Ms. Donna Mae Springer, Commissioner
Mr. J Yoshimoto, Commission Attorney
Mr. Jon Henricks, Commission Analyst
Ms. Shannon Magnuson, Commission Secretary
CHR. ADAMS: Welcome to the Hawai`i County Charter Commission's Public
Hearing in Ka`u. As soon as I can get our County Clerk. Welcome to the
Hawai`i County Charter Commission's Public Hearing in Ka'u. I would ask you
to please silence your coms devices. I am convening this hearing at 5:04 p.m. on
Friday, March 29th, 2019. This hearing will be recorded for the purpose of
developing minutes that will be available on the Commission's website. The
purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony from the public regarding the work
of the Charter Commission to include proposed Charter Amendments that have
achieved first reading status.
Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
At this time I would ask Commissioners to briefly introduce themselves to include
identifying the district they have been appointed from and I will start with our
Vice -Chair.
MS. ZELKO-SCHLUETER: Sure. Hi. I am Jennifer Zelko-Schlueter. I am
from the Hilo district.
MS. TODD: Aloha, I am Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd and I am from District two
in Hilo.
MS. RICE: Sally Rice and I am from the Kona.
MR. HOPKINS: Kevin Hopkins from Hilo.
MR. HAMANO: Paul Hamano from Hilo district also.
MR. BERGIN: Billy Bergin, Waimea.
CHR. ADAMS: And I am Doug Adams from Hilo. Copies of the protocols for
this public hearing are available at the registration table. I am sure you saw them
as you came in. Let me just highlight a few. As some of you have done, please
register to testify at the registration table. I will call speakers to this table that is
in front here. As you prepare to speak, please state your name, any organization
you are speaking for, and the relevant Charter section or proposed amendment
you are addressing. Speakers will have up to a total of six minutes for their
testimony. Speakers may testify once during this public hearing.
To avoid the potential of Sunshine Law violations and to emphasize the purpose
of this hearing, Commissioners shall refrain from making comments or asking
questions of testifiers during their statements. I would ask all of us to please
maintain an appropriate level of decorum during the hearing. We are all looking
forward to providing an equal opportunity for all testifiers to make their
statements.
And finally, to provide some context for this hearing, allow me to briefly address
the Commission's efforts to date and what follows. First, this is the fifth Charter
Commission since the County Charter became effective 50 years ago. The
Commissioners, all of whom are County residents and none of whom are elected
officials by statute, were appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council at
the end of June, 2018 and have met at least once a month since July to accomplish
our mission as the Charter outlines it. To study and review the operation of the
government of the County under the Charter. We have done that by receiving
information from County departments, the Mayor, and the Council as well as
receiving over 500 separate communications from the public and the County.
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
Second, since October, we have considered 27 different proposed Charter
Amendments to include changing the structure of terms for Council members,
refining the process by which the Public Access, Open Space, and Natural
Resources Preservation mission is accomplished, adding disciplining options for
the Council, the Fire Commission, and the Police Commission, establishing a
Disaster and Emergency Fund, and modifying minimum qualifications for
Corporation Counsel, the Fire Chief, and the Public Work's Director. Information
on these proposals is available on the Commission website, the link to which can
be found on the County's homepage.
Third, we are convening six public hearings, one in each geographic district as
identified in the County Charter. This is our second public hearing. We had our
first last Monday in Kohala. Following these hearings, we have until the end of
June to submit to the County Council a report on our activities, findings, and
recommendations together with a draft of the Proposed Charter Amendments that
have actually made it through second reading. Meaning that it has been approved
three times. The Council has 30 days to return the proposals with any alternatives
to the Commission, after which within a month, the Commission shall provide its
final draft of proposed amendments to the County Clerk. Ballot language will
then be developed by the Commission for submission to County voters for
decision on the November 3rd, 2020 election ballot. Let me just rephrase, restate
that, the decision on any amendment will be made by County voters, not by the
Commission.
At this time, I would like to take our first speaker. So if I could ask Annie Bosted
and John Replogle to please come to the table and then Annie you would be the
first one to speak. Again, I would ask you to provide your name, any organization
you are representing, and the Charter provision or proposed amendments that you
are speaking to. Mahalo.
STATEMENTS
FROM THE PUBLIC
ANNII- BOSTED: Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 in opposition.
MS. BOSTED: Chairman Adams and honorable members of the Charter
Commission, my name is Annie Bosted and I live in Ocean View. A huge
mahalo to all of you for removing CA -7 and CA -16 from consideration. Future
generations will owe you a great debt of gratitude for not gutting PONC which
voters have supported in the polls at three elections. I am very much against
Charter Amendment 8 and strongly favor Charter Amendment 9 and 18. Charter
Amendment 8 removes an incentive for Council members to work for their
constituents. Charter Amendment 9 and 18 are both amendments that will
streamline PONC and make it more effective by correcting evident flaws. CA -9
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
will allow money in the 2% fund to be used to pay for a dedicated staff position in
the County Department of Finance. At present the person tasked with acquiring
land is also given other duties in the Department of Finance. Her predecessor in
that position was Ms. Alexandra Kelepolo who for ten years was PONC's
Property Management Technician until she resigned in January of 2017. During
her tenure, PONC became one of the most successful Open Space Programs in the
State of Hawai `i. Ms. Kelepolo saved PONC a lot of money by getting grants and
matching funds. Fourteen miles from where we are here now, in that direction,
the County bought a wonderful ocean front property near Ocean View. Ms.
Kelepolo was able to close on this property that had a purchase price of $2.6
million dollars, by spending only $764,745 of PONC funds. We are looking at
buying $2.6 million with about three quarters of a million. Good deal. How you
may ask? Well, the Federal Department of Fish and Wildlife contributed one
million, two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, and the State's Legacy Land
Conservation Fund gave the County $621,245, the deal took six years of planning,
negotiating, report writing, inspections, and generally jumping through hoops, but
3,128 acres were saved for posterity. The case of Kawa, another desirable ocean
front property was similar. It is about 10 miles in that direction. There the sales
price was nearly $4 million dollars. Again the Feds helped out with $507,000 and
the State contributed $1 million five hundred thousand dollars. So the $4 million
dollar property cost the County less than $2 million. This is the advantage of
having a full-time person working and getting the best deals for the County.
Now I would like to talk about what could happen if we don't have a full-time
property technician. Some of you might have read about a State audit of the
Legacy Land Conservation Fund in Honolulu. In January the State Auditor
published a report listing deficiencies in this multi-million dollar program. These
included paying salaries from the fund to DLNR (Department of Land and
Natural Resources) staff who were not working on fund business. The auditor
also pointed out that the fund lost monies because the staff position was not filled
for 13 months, and thus the correct paper work was not filed and so projects were
not funded. I would hate to see all of this happen to PONC. We need a full-time
employee who can maintain all the necessary paper work and meet all the
obligations required by agencies that give funds to the County. I don't believe
this can happen if the position is part-time. Acquiring lands is also about
opportunity. When a desirable property comes up for sale, PONC and a full-time
staff member should be able to immediately get on it before they can be outbid by
other potential buyers. The staff member should also immediately apply for all
the grants that are possible. This can be a time consuming process with long
periods of waiting and interspersed with sudden bursts of activity when a potential
grantor suddenly wants facts, figures, photos, or whatever... yesterday. A missed
deadline is a lost opportunity for the County and for future generations.
CA -18 is necessary to get funds to the invaluable volunteers that work on
maintaining and husbanding PONC properties. I understand that there is $3
million dollars in the fund, yet money is not being awarded to non-profit groups
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that steward the lands. Many applicants are turned down and the lucky ones must
wait until September or so for the grants that they were awarded. In the meantime
they are spending money from their own pockets. If the Department of Finance
would... were to administer the maintenance grants, perhaps the process would be
smoother and grants would be paid in January. Mahalo for giving me the
opportunity to testify. I trust my testimony has not fallen on deaf ears.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I could ask Dennis Riordan please to come to the
table. Great. Sir.
JOHN REPLOGLE: Proposal No. CA -18 in support.
MR. REPLOGLE: My name is John Replogle and I grew up here in Ka'u. I live
in Ocean View now and thank you all for coming all the way out here to God's
country. I am speaking... I didn't write it down because I didn't see it, but on
CA -9, add staff to PONC. I would like to say that I would like this to be a
somewhat of a... it would go into the Finance Department but that person would
be strictly a PONC working director almost. And I think they should start out
with that. Had we done this years ago, I think PONC wouldn't be having as much
criticism as it may have gotten. I don't feel that staff should mean several
employees because that is not going to do it. After a brief period of time, a year
or so, if this PONC person in finance really needs help, then it should be within
the Finance Department or the Mayor or whoever to provide it. On CA -18
regarding the maintenance fund, I have some concerns regarding the toilet
facilities portion of that and it definitely needs to be addressed, but it is a... I
think it is a fine line between "We need a toilet here." And "Oh, but you only
have 40 people coming there a month", so that is where the director position and
when 501(c)(3)'s are given the go ahead, you take care of this property, statistics
and data needs to be collected by those people. This isn't a...just a handout. This
is serious stuff. They are using taxpayer's money which is getting more scarce,
but that the toilet facilities issue would require planning and should it be
determined, the amount of people going to certain sites are large, then possibly
out of the PONC fund, funding could be shifted to the County Park and Rec (Park
and Recreation) Planning Department to do the plans for the facility. Locating it
and I don't think we should be leaving that up to me or somebody like me, and I
guess what I am saying is I like that there is a maintenance fund because it is
needed, but that when it is doled out and issued, these 501(c)(3)'s need to respond
with what happened, how did it go, where are we going, what are our goals, and
be accountable for this funding. And so, in a sense it is almost like PONC would
be starting all over again with this director. This director would turn PONC into
what it could be or should have become. There's like a million people in the State
and we have 10 million visitors and right now it may not seem like it, but at some
point, everybody can't go to just one place and if these 501(c)(3)'s can get things
off the ground, there is always the potential at some point to put some form of
ecosystem services fee on these properties where you pay to use them and I know
it sounds harsh but that is the reality I think taking place on the world today. We
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
just can't keep using stuff up without recouping, and I urge you to consider the
ecosystem services side of it. Maybe it is not for you. Maybe it is for this
director as the program develops. But I do believe that helping with the
maintenance fund must happen and as you have already heard it has to happen in
a timely fashion. I don't know if I would want to be the director of this. I think it
would be a hard job, but I am sure that person is out there. Anyway, thank you
very much for hearing me out.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I could ask `Aina Akamu please to come to the
table.
DENNIS RIORDAN: Proposal No. CA -2 and CA -9 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 in opposition.
MR. RIORDAN: My name is Dennis Riordan and I am representing myself. I
would like to state that please don't' change the County Council terms. Two
years is just fine and people should have figured out their job by then. If they are
doing a good job they don't really have to go out and campaign that much. They
can run on their record, so using that as a reason that we can't... that they have to
have four years is kind of bogus in my mind.
On the PONC fund, yes, we need somebody to run the money side of it and we
need somebody to run the maintenance side of it. You gotta have somebody in
the office that is writing the grants, taking care of the money, looking at the grants
that the 501(c) (3)s are asking for, and then you have got to have somebody out
there going around and looking at all of these properties and making sure that you
don't have the homeless moving in, like we have down in Kona right now on one
of... you know, I was involved in having to get those... the homeless camp out of
PONC lands and it is because there is nobody that works for PONC and yet we
own so much land that we should be taking care of it and making sure the
neighbors aren't encroaching on it, making sure the 501(c)(3)'s are doing what
they are saying that they are doing. So it is not a one person job. And I know
everyone... nobody wants to hire a County employees and all the rest of that, but
it has got to be a person that does... the person that does the office work is
probably not the person that is going to be out there stomping around in their steel
toe boots making sure that the land is being protected and the 501(c)(3)'s can be
the people on the ground but you have got to verify that the stuff is being done
that they say they are doing. The equipment that is being bought is being taken
care of, it is there, it is being used and whatnot, and at the same time instead of
each one of these 501(c)(3)'s getting their own five weed eaters, we could
actually open up a little rental company that that person would run and you come
and check out five weed eaters for your weekend project and then you bring them
back all clean and they get checked in and now another 501(c)(3) can come and
take them out the next week or however that would happen, but please keep the
PONC money going and hire some people out of that fund so that it can become a
useable system. Thank you.
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
Oh and thank you for giving up your Friday afternoon and evening.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I could ask Renee Dufault please to come. Great.
Sir.
`AINA AKAMU: Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 and CA -27
in opposition.
MR. AKAMU: Aloha awakea kakou, my name is `Aina Akamu. I am here
representing myself. Thank you folks so much for providing this opportunity for
us to provide testimony to you today. First I would like to state that I was born
and raised here in Ka`u. Kali is my home. My family has lived here for
generations. I am fortunate enough that I can trace my genealogy back 66
generations through the opu`u kahuna genealogy of this island, so I am definitely
rooted in in this place. I am a part of the Ka`u Hawaiian Civic Club. I am the
education and scholarship Chairperson. I am also a faculty member at Ka`u High
School. I teach the construction academy and the culinary academy there. I also
volunteer for Kali athletics. I am usually at most of our home games. I also am
one of the community stewards for the Kahua Olohu Makahiki Grounds here in
Ka`u. One of the lands that was purchased by the PONC fund. Besides that I am
the senior class advisor. I am the culinary club advisor. We are taking a trip to
Japan for the first time ever, Ka`u High School since 1881, first international trip
we are ever having taken this year, so I am definitely invested in this place.
First I would like to say that I do not support changing of the two-year to four-
year terms for CA -8. I think it is our Council member's jobs to be involved in the
community and get to know the community so that we want to re-elect them
because we know they are fighting for us. We don't want to be forgotten and
Kali is used to being forgotten, so we would appreciate having our Council
members be even more accountable to us rather than less accountable to us.
I also support CA -18 transferring PONC to the Department of Finance. Currently
the PONC Commission is administered by the Department of Finance. It lies there
as one of the community stewards that have put forth the request to purchase
PONC lands as well as to put forth a stewardship grant, it is difficult going
between two departments. I believe the County Parks and Recs (Recreation)
doesn't even want this kuleana anyway, so I do support transferring it to keep it
all in house in one department under the Department of Finance. I think that
would be a good idea so I do support CA -18. In terms of CA -9, additional staff
for PONC funding, I think this is extremely important as one of the community
stewards, it is so difficult for us to put forth a grant honestly it is a three to four
year commitment of being on so many things and being available to do so many
things and collect testimony from the community and try to... in the meantime as
our friend said, spend your own time, money, and effort to still maintain these
sites while we are hoping, wishing, and praying that the County will come
through and purchase it. So we have got to do this work for three to four years to
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
get it purchase it and then we got to go through this process to get a Community
Stewardship Grant and our grant for 2017 comes in in December, 2018 and that
was our money we were supposed to spend for 2018. We need somebody in a
position to manage this. To help us as community groups. Currently we are just
going through the Department of Finance asking Hamana who we know to help
us with these applications. This stuff is no joke. To apply for lands to be
considered by PONC and what it says in here is the public has to come forward
with surveys and environmental assessments and archaeological surveys. We as
the community, people who are working full-time jobs, have to put our lives on
hold to be able to put together a robust application so that it will be considered
hopefully on the first round. Probably maybe by the second if you are lucky.
And then it takes another two years to put together the proposal for a stewardship
grant. So we are talking about four years of land sitting that we are still working
to try and maintain on our own. We really need somebody there that we can
count on as a point person to help us, so I am just coming to you from the position
of the community steward who is out there on the land trying to take care of it as
best as we can. We need help cause we have no one currently to go to and ask all
of our questions of and this is a big process. If we had somebody to help us
through figuring all of this out, tax map keys, archaeological surveys, that would
be great, so I totally am in support of CA -9.
Lastly for CA -18, no, CA -27, in regards to having the County prefer an easement
over acquiring an entire parcel, I think this is completely redundant and
unnecessary. I totally oppose this. The language is already written in there.
Purchase or otherwise acquire lands and easements. It is a done deal. We don't
need all this extra rigmarole, like I said, it is already too much and it is already
becoming a burdensome beast without having somebody there, so I think it is
completely unnecessary and like I said, it is up to us, the public to decide if we
want to put forth a proposal that includes the entire easement or an easement or
the entire property. If we had a director there they could help us and say "hey,
`Aina, your group should consider an easement because of X,Y, and Z" and we
can say "well, we want to do this", rather than putting forth the whole proposal
and it getting shot down. So I definitely think that we don't need this. I think
what we really need is a person in that position to help us and it is redundant. So
for all of these reasons I thank you for giving me this time to testify today and
thank you guys for making your time available. Mahalo.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I could ask John Vose please to come to the table,
and Renee.
RENEE DUFAULT: Proposal No. CA -9 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 and CA -27 in opposition.
MS. DUFAULT: Okay. Thank you. My name is Dr. Renee Dufault and I have
lived in Kali for 11 years. I have been a community member either teaching full-
time at the schools or serving on community... school community councils and
right now I am teaching full-time at Kali High. I teach special education. I am a
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
retired public health service officer and while I was working for the United States
Government I spent four years at the Environmental Protection Agency and that is
all you need to know right now. So when I hear what is going on here with the
PONC which I have been following closely in the newspapers and it only today I
found out about this... what was... you know this meeting here... hearing. So I
am going to put out an idea and what I think would be best to benefit the future
generations in terms of protecting natural and cultural resources for the future, is
if the PONC person was a separate independent agency if you will, like the EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency) is separate from the United States
Government, and you really need to let... it needs to have at least one and
probably more than one because you are going to have the need to manage grants,
so grant manager, plus some sort of, perhaps you could have a committee that
approves the applications, right? So, but the point being is that if you had an
independent agency, that agency is free from influence from Mayoral or County
politics see, because the overall goal is to protect and preserve the cultural and
natural resources for future generations and you don't want any politics involved
in that. And so, the main thing is to give the power to the people at the
community level because they are the ones who are best able to determine in their
community, what the most important `aina is. What is the most important
resources or sacred sites to protect, so if you had an independent organization that
was part of the government but independent, and you had the people there that
were set up to serve as grant managers and take in the applications, provide
consultation, they have their own money. They have their own budget. And the
budget is what the 2%, plus the maintenance right? But you have a system in
place so that this group is not touched by politics okay? That is my suggestion
because I worked for the United States Government for 20 years and I have seen
what does and what doesn't work.
So the other thing is, I am opposed to the CA -8. I think that we need to keep our
term limits at two years. They can run up to... for eight years. You can have
them in there for eight years so if they are doing a good job then you know, they
need to continue talking with the community. One of the great things about
Hawai`i that is different from the rest of the United States is there is still a
democracy here. Look at us here today. We are here. We are testifying. This
doesn't happen everywhere else, so one of the wonderful things about Hawai`i is
we still have an opportunity to communicate and share our feelings and thoughts
and have people listen to us and the government listen. And you are here as
volunteers you know. You are taking in what we are saying. This is wonderful.
This is a democracy. This is the way that it should be. So I am opposed to the...
trying to you know, stretch out those terms longer than the current two years. I
am definitely for the PONC one hire but like I say, I would highly recommend an
independent agency and they you know, they handle everything and what we need
to keep in mind is the mission which is to protect, preserve, natural and cultural
resources for... and so communities in the communities... which they identify,
they submit their grant proposals. So it is just you know, an idea.
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
The other thing is my only reservation about CA -18 is the language has been
taken out for the requirement to have it ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act),
any facility should be accessible to the people with disabilities. I am... I teach
children with disabilities, so I strongly believe that when people put forth their
grant applications, they need to allow for you know, explain how they are going
to make the site accessible to people with disabilities whether it is the elderly or
children in wheelchairs okay, so I am opposed to that language. And for number
27, I think that as Kumu said before me, that the language is already there. They
don't need to put restrictions on the, on the process you know, when you have a
grant application process, the way it works is you put out a request for proposals,
you... in that request you say what is allowed and what is not allowed for that
particular grant. And so there doesn't need to be any cumbersome additional
restrictions in writing. Thank you. Thank you very much for all of your time. I
appreciate it.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you so much. If I could ask Tomislav Gralanin,
Gracanin, please to come to the table. Sir.
MR. VOSE: Aloha.
CHR. ADAMS: Aloha.
JOHN VOSE: Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 in opposition.
MR. VOSE: My name is John Vose. I live in Ocean View. I am strongly
opposed to CA -8, I am firmly convinced that a Council member that face re-
election every two -years is far more likely to stay in touch with the needs of his or
her constituents than one who faces re-election only once every eight years. We
need Council members who work for us and report back to us regularly.
I support CA -9 as I think that a multi-million dollar program which PONC is,
needs the full and undivided attention of at least, at least one full-time staff
person. The duties are far too important to be done in between other tasks. The
staff person needs to be focused on one very important job. Millions of dollars
we are talking. In order to do it to a high standard.
I support CA -18. I believe that the PONC land maintenance program should be
administered by Finance, not Parks and Recreation. Parks and Recreation's track
record is not up to standard. The department appears to lack the expertise to
manage the maintenance grants. In a perfect world the grant monies would be
awarded to the applicants in January so that they have the entire year to
implement their stewardship and management plan for the properties. When they
submit their budget and timeline to the County it is based on a calendar year but
when they get their monies in September fiscal year as happens that only leaves
four months which is definitely not enough time to accomplish a year's worth of
tasks. These delays have caused frustrations among groups of volunteers. I hope
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that the County will not lose this valuable resource due to bungling. As you know
the half percent fund can be used for buying tools and equipment. I was recently
made aware of a situation where a group of volunteers working in Waipi`o Valley
needed to use a chipper that had been purchased with PONC maintenance funds,
however when they asked for it somebody at Parks and Recreation refused to give
it to them, saying that it was being saved for another project, clearly volunteers
must compete with professional land maintenance staff for resources. That would
not happen if Finance was in charge. Further, volunteer groups are advocating for
funds to be used for necessary construction. For example, if there is evidence that
a property is being ruined because there is no public toilet available, then the
funds should be able to finance a composting or a port -a -potty. I trust that the
Commission will take seriously, concerns expressed by volunteers who are giving
their time to improve lands for all of us. If maintenance funds can be used to
correct these deficiencies, then they should be used and not stockpiled. I would
like to see more non -profits being awarded grants and less nit picking. Mahalo
for letting me testify.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I could ask Keoni Fox to please come up. Okay
thanks. Sir.
TOMISLAV
GRACANIN: Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 in opposition.
MS. GRACANIN: Good evening and I really appreciate you all coming on a
Friday evening to hear our comments. That's dedication. Thanks a lot. In the
interest of full disclosure, I am here for myself however I am the Chairman of the
Cave Conservancy of Hawai`i and I am very interested in conserving properties
that contain all kinds of resources of Hawai`i, natural history as well as cultural
history. Cave Conservancy protects over 80 acres that contain lava tubes and
their resources, native plants and animals, cultural remains, mineral features, and
cave adapted animal life, as well as fossil and rare animal fossils that are now...
well, fossil remains and remains of now almost extinct animals. These and more
resources, similar resources are protected by PONC lands that have been
purchased recently.
For example at Kawa Bay and in the Kahuku-Kai region of Ocean View and Kali
especially contains a lot of cultural resources because this is the area where the
Hawaiians first arrived and the archaeology here is important to the entire State.
Consequently, I very much support CA -9 as well as CA -18 and for CA -9 I am
very interested in seeing that a manager is put in place for the PONC lands. That
is employed by the Department of Finance and who is dedicated to the
advancement of those interests of the PONC and as well as evaluating new
properties for purchase. On CA -18 right now the County has a great deal going
with lots of volunteers doing lots of work at their own expense and they... well, I
know because I participate. We remove garbage, invasive plants, we do resource
evaluation, including native plants, animals, cultural features, and the
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
KEONI FOX:
underground resources. And so, I think it is appropriate that the County support
these volunteers and at least the managers that spend a lot of time planning and
organizing the work that is being done by the volunteers. In the Cave
Conservancy all our expenses... none of our expenses are paid for. Everything is
out of pocket and that is the way that we have been operating for the last 20 years.
And finally on the question of CA -8, I made a mistake on my form. I oppose CA -
8. I do support that the two-year terms and especially because the two-year terms
make the Council members more responsive to the voters. Thank you.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. Mr. Foy.
MR. FOX: Good afternoon my name is Keoni Fox.
CHR. ADAMS: Fox.
Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18, commenting.
MR. FOX: F.O.X. Fox, yes. I am involved with a couple different non -profits. I
sit on the boards and I have been involved with the PONC nomination process as
well as with the stewardship process. I am actually here today to speak in my
individual capacity.
The first item is regarding CA -9. I will just keep my comments brief. I have
been trying to follow the different proposed changes. There have been many so it
is a little difficult to see what is the latest, but my first comment regarding CA -9, I
do support dedicating a staff, using the 2% monies for the program. The latest
language it is my understanding that it doesn't single out one full-time staff
member, it just says staff in general and I think it is really important to say that
there is one person that is going to carry that responsibility and that they are
dedicated to the program so that you know, we don't lose that... the benefits that
that one position can offer. And I think that you know, although there has been a
lot of challenges and there have been some comments about how the program can
be improved, it is really important to think about the potential of this program and
really what it can do and it is still relatively new. I still think it has room to grow
and I think that is kind of where we are all at today and that is what we all want to
do. We all want to see it succeed.
My second comment is about CA -18. I definitely support the transfer of the
program from Parks over to Finance. I think that they can do a good job running
this and I do have some concerns about some of the proposed language that
allowed for development of restroom facilities and so forth. It is important to
remember that you know, all of these lands that we are protecting, they are not
typical parks or what we would think of like a beach park. A lot of these sites
have very sensitive cultural and natural resources so something like you know a
new trail or a bathroom facility just might not be appropriate. You know I realize
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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019
that a lot of that would probably come out during the review process if something
like that were put forward, but I just caution about the use of some of that
language. Maybe there is a way to tighten it up a little bit better. Thank you.
CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. Are there any other speakers? It appears
that we have no more speakers. I would like to thank all of the testifiers for their
statements, the Commissioners for your attention, and the staff for their efforts in
helping us convene this hearing.
Our next public hearing will be held Monday, April 1st, this coming Monday at
5:00 p.m. at the Pahoa Community Center, 15-3022 Kauhale Street in Pahoa,
district of Puna. Please drive safely and thanks for coming today.
Commission Approval: April 25, 2019
ss Shipman Adams, Chair
020 Hawai`i County Charter Commission
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